Deadlight (21 page)

‘Two one.’ He beamed. ‘To Sweden.’

The drive to police headquarters took less than ten minutes. The rain had eased now, and Faraday sat in the back of the Toyota Landcruiser, gazing out. The streets beneath the looming Rock were choked with traffic: pickups with Spanish plates, piled high with boxes of fruit; a bored-looking sailor at the wheel of a Bedford truck; an old man on a bicycle, nut-brown face, oblivious to everything.

Police HQ turned out to be a colonial-style building down by the docks. The Landcruiser dropped them outside and Melia led them beneath an archway, keying a number into the big gate that led through to the inner courtyard. Palm trees dripped the last of the rain on to the surrounding flagstones and it was warmer than Faraday had expected, a hot clamminess that pricked at his skin.

A first-floor veranda ran around all four sides of the courtyard and Melia gestured up towards a half-open window.

‘Coffee?’

Two other men, both plain clothes, were waiting in Melia’s office. Melia did the introductions. He had a courtliness and a charm that Faraday had long ceased to associate with policing, and he could see that Yates noticed it too. Eager to please, this man could have been a hotelier in one of those discreet establishments that used to soften the harder edges of empire. They were welcome in Gibraltar. The weather would cheer up in an hour or so and he hoped they’d have a profitable stay.

Faraday was keen to get on with the business. Was Pritchard still at the Panorama Hotel?

‘As of this morning,’ Melia said, ‘yes.’

He’d assigned a two-man squad to keeping tabs on Pritchard. The Panorama was one of a chain of hotels catering for the cheaper end of the package tour market but the manager was well known to them and had been more than helpful.

‘We have a log of all Mr Pritchard’s phone calls and access to his room whenever you need it. It seems that he’s is a regular at the hotel. He came here last year, and twice the year before. He normally stays a couple of weeks and does pretty much the same thing every day. The manager says you can set your clock by him.’

‘Meaning?’

‘The same bars. The same restaurants. Your Mr Pritchard, it appears, is a creature of habit.’

Faraday, impressed, returned the smile. Nick Hayder was right. These guys had Gibraltar taped.

‘So this morning … ?’

‘He’ll have taken breakfast in his room. Normally toast and coffee and a little drink on the side. He buys Scotch by the litre from a shop round the corner. It’s cheap here, duty free. Currently, he’s getting through a bottle a day.’

‘Including breakfast?’

‘According to the chambermaid, yes. She knows him, too, and likes him. She says he likes Johnnie Walker best of all. He drinks the stuff by the tumblerful.’

Faraday and Yates exchanged glances. Conducting interviews under caution when the subject was pissed was a non-starter. Given Pritchard’s consumption, they’d have to allow hours for him to sober up.

‘What’s he up to the rest of the morning?’

Melia glanced across at the older of the two detectives. The man produced a notebook. According to the manager, another friend of Pritchard’s, their guest was planning a little light shopping followed by a session at the Nelson Bar.

‘It’s down on Main Street,’ Melia added. ‘Very popular with the matelots. The management have put in extra screens for the World Cup. I understand our friend is keen on football.’

Yates had been gazing at the prints on the wall, sepia
studies of Gibraltar between the wars. Now he reached across to Faraday and touched him lightly on the arm.

‘England versus Argentina,’ he murmured. ‘Kicks off at twelve-thirty.’

Faraday was still looking at Melia.

‘Pritchard’ll be there for that?’

‘Undoubtedly. The chambermaid says he’s brought three England shirts. He thinks they’ll be enough to get him to the final.’

‘Then he
is
a pisshead.’ Yates’s aside drew a laugh from both detectives.

‘What do you think, then?’ It was the younger man this time. ‘Draw?’

‘No way. I think Argentina will stuff us.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Yeah. Unless Owen gets cranked up we’ve got no chance. The Argies are world class. Eriksson talks a good game but we were pathetic against the Swedes.’

Faraday brought the conversation to an end. Already, thanks to Frank Melia, he could sense the outlines of a battle plan. It was close to ten. Pritchard, according to the hotel manager, was due at the Nelson within the hour. He’d settle in, down a lager or two, and prepare himself for the big game. A setting like this would provide the perfect opportunity for Yates and himself to study the man. The game over, they’d approach him with a view to a chat. The invitation would be there for him to accompany them back to police headquarters. If Frank Melia would be kind enough to provide Pritchard with somewhere he could sober up, Faraday and Yates would take a cab to the Panorama and have a good look at his room. Later, once Pritchard was in a fit state, they’d go for a first interview under caution.

Yates couldn’t believe his ears.

‘You mean we get to watch the whole game?’

‘I’m afraid so. We need this guy onside. You see any problems, Frank?’

‘Plenty. What if he refuses to talk?’

‘We hope he won’t.’

‘But what if he does? You want us to arrest him? If so he’s bound to ask for legal representation – and that might be tricky. What if he goes for extradition? You could be looking at months.’

‘Sure.’ Faraday nodded. ‘And even if we got it we couldn’t interview him afterwards.’

‘Precisely.’

There was a long silence. Frank Melia suggested the possibility of swearing the pair of them in as special constables, giving them powers of local arrest and interview, but Faraday knew this would only lead to the same legal impasse, the entire investigation stalled while they plodded through extradition proceedings. On balance, he’d prefer to busk it, letting the situation develop, searching for a relationship with Pritchard that might ease him back to police headquarters without the need for arrest.

‘We have to take a chance,’ he said finally. ‘Make it good cop–good cop and he might be up for a chat.’

Paul Winter was released from hospital at half past ten. The ward manager arranged for transport to take him back to Bedhampton and a nurse helped him get dressed. Walking slowly down the long central corridor towards the lifts, he was astonished how old he felt. Every movement required a conscious effort and he watched the way everyone seemed to make a big, respectful detour as they walked towards him. Even the women waiting for the lift stepped aside at his faltering approach.

Home was a modest post-war bungalow off the island on the lower slopes of Portsdown Hill. The minibus dropped him at the kerbside but he refused the offer of a helping hand up the garden path. Only when the bus had gone, and the street was empty again, did he investigate the huge bunch of flowers on his front doorstep. The
cellophane wrapper was the giveaway, embossed with the name of the florist the CID office at Highland Road always used. A tiny card was tucked between the stems of iris and chrysanthemums. He bent slowly to inspect it. ‘Heartfelt sympathies,’ it read, ‘from all your friends at the Skoda Preservation Society.’

Bastards.

Winter fumbled for his key and let himself in. Despite the improvement in the weather, the bungalow felt cold and unloved. Lately, he’d been toying with getting a pet of some kind, maybe a dog, and he’d been sorely tempted to hang on to Charlie. Nursing his throbbing arm as he made for the kitchen, he now regretted trying to bait a trap like that. Sometimes, he told himself, you can be just too fucking clever.

There was a pack of Nurofen in one of the kitchen cabinets. He swallowed three and then filled the kettle. Plugging it in one-handed was trickier than he’d expected, and he ended up by slopping most of the water on to the tea tray. This little battle, comprehensively lost, made him gloomier than ever and he wondered quite how he was going to kill the days that stretched before him. The consultant at the hospital had muttered something about a complex fracture and warned him to be patient. He had an appointment in three weeks’ time for an assessment, and the plaster might be off by the end of July, but there’d be lots of physio sessions before he could expect a full range of movement.

The tea brewing, Winter sank on to one of the kitchen stools and gazed glumly out of the window. Physio or no physio, he knew he was in even deeper shit with the job. Just now, his injuries qualified him for sick leave but Traffic were bound to investigate his pursuit of Darren Geech and if the evidence sustained a dangerous driving charge then he’d be off the road until the case was resolved in court. Office-bound, without wheels, he’d be fuck-all use to CID and he knew that Hartigan would
have him back in uniform within seconds. That was bad enough. What was even worse was the possibility of losing the court case and facing a lengthy period of disqualification, a handicap that would keep him in uniform for the foreseeable future.

Would that matter? He rocked back and forth on the stool, waiting for the tablets to kick in, knowing that the question answered itself. Of course it would bloody matter. He was a detective, for God’s sake. He’d spent the last twenty years chasing the bad guys, befriending them, tickling their fat tummies, setting them up for the inevitable fall. He did this better than any detective in the city and had the scalps to prove it. That was what he was good at, that was what earthed him, and the prospect of a lengthy spell in uniform was unthinkable. Would he really be able to survive a couple of years as Community Beat Officer, plodding up and down Fratton Road, protecting an eternity of teenage mums and half-arsed charity shops? The answer, he knew, was no but even now, deep in his heart, he still believed that no corner was tight enough not to offer the prospect of escape.

In bed, at the hospital, he’d gone over the chase time and again. The blow to his head had muddied his recall but he seemed to remember the major stepping stones that had bridged the mile or so from Old Portsmouth to the onrushing prospect of the newsagent’s front window. The bus under the railway bridge. The old lady with the stick on the pedestrian crossing. Any of these witness statements would be another nail in Winter’s coffin, and Traffic would doubtless move heaven and earth to dig them up, but the trick in situations like these was to ignore the small print. What he needed now was a change of perspective. Politicians had a word for this. They called it spin. First, though, he had to make sure they’d both got the story straight.

Balancing the tea tray in one hand, Winter made his way through to the lounge. The curtains were still drawn,
the room in semi-darkness. He left the tray on the low table beside the telephone and headed for the window but then changed his mind. The sight of Joannie’s precious garden would only depress him more. The last thing he needed just now was a reminder of everything he should be doing, now that summer was in full bloom.

He switched on the standard lamp over his recliner and dug in the breast pocket of his jacket for his address book. Left-handed, it took an age to hook it out. Dawn’s number was under E for Ellis. The number rang and rang, before an answerphone finally cut in. Callers were to leave a message.

Winter tried to ease his position in the chair. The tablets weren’t working at all.

‘It’s your favourite cop, love. Give us a ring?’

The Nelson Bar was nearly full by the time Faraday and Bev Yates walked in. Frank Melia had given them a lift from police HQ, leaving his mobile number in case something cropped up. Faraday had done his best to express his thanks but Melia had silenced him with a hand on his arm.

‘Pleasure, my friend,’ he’d said simply. ‘I just hope we win.’

Inside the bar, Yates managed to find them a couple of stools, wedged beneath a fading print of HMS
Victory
. The view of the game from here would be far from perfect but there were two TVs plus a big screen so one way or another he’d pick up most of the action.

‘And Pritchard?’ Faraday enquired drily, emerging from the scrum around the bar with a couple of pints of Carlsberg.

With the help of the photo from the Alhambra, Yates had located him at a nearby table. Faraday found a shelf for the lagers and followed Yates’s eyes as they flicked left, recognising the huge white dome of Pritchard’s forehead. Without the pantomime make-up, oddly
enough, the man looked even weirder: moist, bulging eyes, full mouth and a nervous habit of rubbing at a reddened patch of skin on his right cheek where he must have caught the sun. There was a bunch of young sailors seated around him, already several pints down, and Pritchard seemed happy enough to be trapped in the conversational crossfire.

Faraday raised his glass to Yates, and the promise of the next couple of hours. Nick Hayder had been right. Half close your eyes, and they could easily have been back in Portsmouth.

The game kicked off ten minutes later. By now the pub was bursting, a solid mass of people, most of them standing, all of them determined to put the Argies to the sword. The sheer volume of noise was unbelievable, the crowd swaying as one, and Faraday – used to the busy silence of the New Forest, or the sigh of the wind across the salt marsh at Pennington – began to ask himself whether this was such a bad idea. If England managed any kind of result, he’d reasoned, then Pritchard might well be predisposed towards a celebratory chat. Add the warming effects of a couple of gallons of lager, and their worries about extradition might magically disappear.

The first twenty minutes or so, to Faraday’s untutored eye, were inconclusive. Play switched from end to end, then the English goalie made an impressive-looking save, sparking a hundred raised glasses and a chorus of ‘
Sea-man … Sea-man
…’ This was obviously good news for the English fans but Faraday, watching Pritchard, couldn’t help wondering about the almost permanent smile on his face. For someone who may well have kicked his lover to death, he seemed to be having a fine old time.

Seconds later, Yates was on his feet. One of the English players had evidently been clattered by an Argentinian and Yates, along with every other male in the room, wanted blood. The chant this time sent a chill down Faraday’s spine. ‘
Bel-gra-no!
’ they roared. ‘
Bel-gra-no!
We nicked your fucking islands and you’ll never get them back
.’ Faraday turned away, taking a long pull on the lager, wishing he was anywhere but here.